Open Data - a quiet revolution

There is a quiet revolution taking
place in some of the corridors of power, and it gathers under the
banner of Open Data. Its leaders are an unlikely global coalition of
technology evangelists, software developers and forward-looking civil
servants, which together have been crafting a new model of engagement
for public information with the potential to transform the
relationship between citizen and the state.

The fundamental premise of Open Data is
that “unlocking” -- making freely available without constrains on
re-use – the reams of data and information produced by government
officials could immensely enhance the quality of the services
received by citizenship. As a bonus, this would also improve the
efficiency of the public administration, as the main user of
government data is government itself.

Of course, this concept is not new. In
the UK for example we've had The Guardian's initiative to Free
Our Data, which campaigned for several years for government to
stop charging large amounts of money for public data. The best known
example is probably mapping data from Ordinance Survey, which
eventually was released
after a pincer manoeuvre from citizen campaigns and businesses that
felt unfairly treated
by OS.

There is indeed a strong
business lobby for the release and re-use of Public Sector
Information (PSI) as the basis for the creation of a vibrant
economic sector. The central argument here is the contrast between
the flourishing business based on PSI in the USA - weather,
transport, mapping, registries, etc. -- with their European laggard
counterparts. In simple terms the main difference adduced is that in
USA PSI is free and funded by taxation on the value it generates,
while generally in Europe the producers of PSI try to recover the
full costs of production, thus restricting the potential market and
even abusing monopoly positions.

There is growing agreement
on the superiority of providing data for free, or more precisely at
“marginal cost”, and a current
EU consultation hints on this direction, although questions
remain. The main issues centre around commitment to the sustained
production of quality data when funding depends on the political
priorities of the day. As we have seen in the recent Comprehensive
Spending Review, these are very real concerns. However, they do not
justify maintaining the status quo. There is also no evidence –
please correct me – that in the USA there is any attempt to link
public funding for data production to the economic value generated.
It seems to be a public duty that has worked well so far, but without
hard causal evidence. While there is no doubt that changes are
overdue in opening up public data, there is no guarantee that it will
become the promised golden egg. The case for Open Data cannot solely
rely on economic arguments.

Organisations such as MySociety
have been developing successful tools for civic engagement that build
on public data. These range from petitions
to the prime minister to the stunning Mapumental
tool that helps you choose where to live based on house prices and
transport times. There are similar initiatives in many other
countries powered by a fast growing network of “civic hackers”,
geeks and programmers channelling their skills and imagination in
this area. The film below looks at creative re-use of transport data.

Those tools initially relied on
technological tricks to access
data that was publicly available but not in a usable form that
allowed you to build an automated application. In many cases these
clever reuses of public data are frowned upon, or even persecuted
However, in the past couple of years the gates of government opened
to the geeks, or at least a decently-sized side door.

In the UK, a stream of reports
gathered increased momentum and turned the policy
machine in this direction, which has given more room to open
minded civil servants for external collaboration outside the stifling
Government IT
procurement frameworks. A good example of this are the hack days
organised by Rewired
State
, “where
developers show government what is possible, and government shows
developers what is needed”.
These developments were initiated by the Labour government and
carried over with gusto by the Coalition in a rare show of
“tri-partisan” agreement.

In North America local and regional
governments also started experiments in collaboration with the civic
hacker community. The best known of those is the competition Apps
for Democracy '09 in Washington, DC, where a near economic
miracle was performed by producing “47
web, iPhone and Facebook apps in 30 days - a $2,300,000 value to the
city at a cost of $50,000”. Notwithstanding
the possibility of a bubble valuation and the complex ethics of free
labour, the event showed that opening up the public sector to the
community could bring amazing benefits both economic and in terms of
engagement. There have now been dozens of attempts to emulate this
with varying degrees of success.

In the USA, the arrival of Obama to the
White House marked a turning point in terms of openness. As a
senator, Barack Obama had already showed support
for transparency, and he campaigned as the New
Media candidate. On January
21, 2009, on his first full day in office, President Obama issued a
transparency and open
government memo.
He also appointed Vivek Kundra, the administrator responsible for the
apps miracle, as Federal Chief Information Officer. The apps
competition had been enabled by a one-stop-shop data
catalogue for all D.C.'s public data,
and Vivek went to replicate this approach at the federal level,
creating Data.gov.
Again this approach is now being implemented in several – mostly
Anglo-Saxon – countries, and watched intently by others.

Greater
transparency across Government is at the heart of our shared
commitment to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies
to account; to reduce the deficit and deliver better value for money
in public spending; and to realise significant economic benefits by
enabling businesses and non-profit organisations to build innovative
applications and websites using public data.

Although
Cameron is mainly appealing at the economic benefits – forcing
savings and value generation, this unprecedented situation has
rekindled ideas about the transformational power of ICT for radical
democratic upheaval. There is widespread talk of Open
Government,
and even Government
2.0,
a fundamental realignment of citizen and state.

However,
it may take more than technology and engagement to bring such a
radical change. Campaigning groups that have been promoting
government transparency and right to information are now converging
with open data activists. This is leading to interesting insights
about both the universal applicability of an unadulterated Open Data
agenda, and the obstacles OD promoters may find as they move towards
politically charged datasets.

ORG
will be developing an approach to Open Data that proactively promotes
data openness as an enabler for enhanced citizenship in a digital
age, while being consistent with our wider concerns on the protection
of rights and freedoms. The situation is positively encouraging and
it presents a unique
opportunity from ORG's perspective.

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